Board Games General /bgg/

How do you guys feel about the Dark Souls board game? There is a fanmade expansion for it on the Steam Workshop, it seems pretty fun. I'm hoping we get the actual expansions for it soon.

Any 2 - 4 players game best played in 2? (No strictly 2 player games)

Be it light or more complex, doesn't matter.

Deckbuilding games I find to normally be best with two, especially those kind of 'trade row /refresh' games like star realms and ascension. Since the row doesn't scale with players, when you play with 3 or 4 each player loses control over what they want in the middle, which leads to a very boring turn downtime.

I also love playing race for the galaxy with the two player experienced rules, but that's mostly because my larger game group doesn't get it.

Don't have it. Or have I played it but the things I've heard boil down to:
>boss fights are pretty great
>it's a three hour grindfest to get to each boss

It's okay. Lacks some of the 'feeling' of the video game due to dice rolls for combat (Everything except enemy AI pattrens was entirely deterministic in the video game) and the way the turn orders go player A-all enemies-player B-all enemies.

As a solo game it's perhaps above average but can suffer from loot draw screweyness due to your only way to get equipment being spending souls to drawn cards from a randomized deck. And with there being a mostly even distribution of cards oriented towards each 'class' of character meaning you on average will need to draw about 4 cards to get something useful to any one particular character.

Also trying to dodge attacks is SUPER risky (all or nothing on a usually 50% to 70% chance of success) compared to just blocking (simply reduce damage taken by a defense roll)

Ultimately it's an okay to pretty good dungeon crawl that's major failing is that it doesn't feel all that 'souls' ish.

war of the ring

I think it captures the feeling of the game well enough, actually. Combat is pretty lethal, and the dice rolls are there solely because it's a game and it would probably be a mess to design a fun, exciting combat system without using a bit of randomness.

It definitely plays best with a group though, since no matter what you draw someone will be able to use in.

Even though it's super duper antiquated, I feel it has never been truly replaced.A lot of dungeon crawl add mechanics to make the gameplay feel tighter, but unfortunately, that means you dont get quite the explorey feel most of the time. Closest we ever got was the european D&D game from like 15 years ago, but even that has creaky, clunky mechanics.

Maybe heroquest cannot ever be truly replaced.

I can understand those feelings, but I still kind sit on the otherside of that fence.

I think using dice was a cop out and instead of putting in the effort to make a more unique and thematic system they just went with dungeon crawl 101: weapons give you x dice of y type.

And also I think Dark Souls works best at 1-2 players due to the way the enemy turns and AI works. With a four player game you have to wait essentially 7 turns for it to be your turn again since each player takes on turn and then the enemies have to take their turns. Yes each turn is relatively short, but it can still amount to quite a bit of time.

I think the map exploration element is very thematic (even if it can drag a little) because after dropping a group of enemies you do get that true-to-the-game moment where you decide whether to rest up, buy gear, and reset everything, or push on to grab some more souls.

I've got a sort of half-complete houserule for the equipment deck I've been working on that I need to put some more thought and effort into. My thoughts are to split the deck into a few categories (titanite shards and such drop from enemies while merchants sell most arms and armor) or at least 'tiers' and then have a 'trade row' so you can better know what you're going to get out of it. (Again a miss-step of the game in my opinion because the only loot that was randomized in the game was drops from enemies. Everything else you always had access to at certain points in the game)

>(Again a miss-step of the BOARD game in my opinion because the only loot that was randomized in the VIDEO game was drops from enemies. Everything else you always had access to at certain points in the game)
fix'd

The map exploration is nice even though it's only like 4 rooms per boss.

Once the players all know the rules, it really shouldn't be more than a minute per turn or so, so you only have to wait a few minutes.

>ADHD
No. The *idea* of dungeon crawling always seemed better than the experience itself. For some reason once you start doing the actual thing it turns out it's no more exciting than being an office job drone. (I read the AD&D books from cover to cover multiple times without actually playing the game. That and the Gamma World books, an even cooler D&D than D&D.)

I only have two cunts at work who would even talk to me.
Best 3-player games?

Race for the Galaxy. Dominion.

AI turns will go quickly, sure, but player turns can easily dip into heavily analyzing what the future enemy turn will contain since you know how the enemies will be acting. The game heavily rewards baiting the enemies out and making them move into advantageous positions (which in concept is a good thing because an important part of 'souls' games is being aware of and manipulating position and the environment). And that can make turns take more than just a minute or so.

I enjoy Sagrada and Unearth as light, filler-y dice chucking fun for two players. Both scale pretty well regardless of player count.

Would this thread be a good place to discuss/shill kickstarter stuff? An artist I follow recently put up a small card based skirmish type game; figured some anons might be interested.

Churchill, The King is Dead, Eight Minute Empires, Splendor, Century: Golem Edition, Kemet

Why would you not post the name of the game/link? This isn't plebbit, you won't lose precious internet points.

Ain't nothing out of the ordinary for us. We might criticize it harshly if it's jewy or bad but that's life for ya.

eh, people can be pretty vicious to 'shilling' well intentioned or not.
Anywho, this is the games site and kickstarter link.

> zephyrwars.com/ (lore)
> kickstarter.com/projects/kinkysketch/zephyr-wars (actual game)

Basically, you have two opposing players with a deck of soldiers+skills, then fight it out in a 3x3 battlefield grid. The video/KS page explain it way better than I could.
The author said it would probably get expansions with different armies and stuff if it did well.

so it's just war with some "tactics" cards? also those illustrations look like images of statues, not warriors charging into battle

Pretty much, the decks are soldiers ranging in power from 1-10 and 'tactics' cards. And yeah, the art of both sides while pretty, is kinda stiff.

looks like a game you could play with casual gamers really easily, but beyond that just seems like a way to get some of this guys art if youre super into it. not very exciting to the average person imo

with the first two lines I thought you were talking about heroquest

yeah, that was my thought process as well. I mostly want it since my group of friends are too scatterbrained to sit down and/or not play vidya for long games. Might be good to play while having a few beers though.

Both Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Quest did a fucking decent job at being Heroquest but better in every aspect.

Dominion is a game designed by ass
>non-stop shuffling, sometimes you need to shuffle mid-turn
>every turn takes a million years as the players dump their entire deck and count actions and coins and silly card effects
>over 9000 cards but the mechanics are so poor that every game boils down to choosing where you're going for a draw engine or just buy money like a fucktard
>the game actively punishes catching up so every match is effectively decided in the first 5 turns

t. played three games of Dominion, core set only

>punishes catching up
I dont understand what you mean by this, but I also havent played dominion in years

>>the game actively punishes catching up so every match is effectively decided in the first 5 turns
Nope, can't make heads or tails of this one.

>implying anyone needs to play more than 3 games of dominion

I own Intrigue and played some games online (mostly because one of my friends is obsessed with this game), I'm roughly familiar with all cards
Since the card pool is shared and very limited by purchasing victory cards while behind you're actively helping the other player to end the game sooner.

What happens when the Barbarian has the BROWDSOWD?

the BROAOWD SAWORD!!

BROAD SWARD

Where do you find people to play board games?

I imagine a lot of you are lucky enough that your friends stayed in town after college, but not so much over here.

Holy fuck I got to play this gem of a game the other night!

>Tfw you have a slow start as the fucking BARD but slowly accumulate treasure as players move inwards before they are ready and suffer terrible consequences

>Tfw you get to the crown of command and the much more capable barbarian is a few steps away from you, will surely destroy you, and becomes bogged down with the Werewolf, allowing you to spell him to death.

Goddamn what a fun game.

today's haul seeing as it's a public holiday and we're having an all-day session, looking forward to hopefully pulling out the heavier stuff. also have Nevermore, Bemused, Tomb Trader and Noir in my backpack but that's tightly packed with other shit

there's beauty in its simplicity as a dungeon crawler, which makes it one of the few dungeon crawlers worth owning apart from Gears of War and Galaxy Defenders

as it wasn't obvious enough from /bgg/ regulars when you tried to describe the Olympics as having a strong metagame a while back, you're continuously proving how much of a brainlet you are with being incapable of understanding what depth actually means. you'd rather let a game railroad you and make your decisions for you rather than demostrating anything resembling problem solving. you keep being you though, I always get a good laugh from your posts

Neuroshima Hex, Titan, Duel of Ages II, Cave Evil: Warcults

The King is Dead, Triumph & Tragedy, Imperial, Wiz-War (especially if you use all variant rules with a * and the B-side boards instead of A-side), Clash of Cultures, Merchants & Marauders

How is Cave Evil: Warcults? Cave Evil looks cool but Warcults seems to cut out the resource gathering aspect from the little I've seen of it. It's hard to find videos of this game anywhere.

The Furniture

I would love to play An Infamous Traffic.

Oh no, Mormons

What's with the tumor on their head?

One of our resident tripfags insists that fencing/hema clubs are secretly also boardgame clubs.

locally one of us (with partners) decided to open a boardgame cafe/resto and its where most of the group migrated to and play now.

The best part of heroquest is the BAARbarian

I stole my brother's friends.

Fuck you Josh you suck.

FLGS, frequently attend one of their events. Most usually host at least 1 night that isn't MtG. I have a regular cast of friends but met some new ones through attending Star Wars Armada nights at my FLGS and now we get together fairly regularly for saturday boardgames and DnD.

Look at the MUSCUlarity

10/10 solo game, mind-numbing grindfest with 2+ players.

Dungeon Saga is pretty much the same game, but without the whimsical fun because "muh nerd fantasy games are for serious austists"

>whimsical fun
>mocking serious settings
pls leave steven jackson

I'm ashamed to say that, as a dumb youngster who was sibling to two other dumb youngsters, that we played - and ruined - the fuck out of our original HeroQuest board game to the point where I think I only have a pair of chaos knights and a chaos mage remaining. My father bought the game originally.

I am -not- ashamed to say that I went on to eBay and dropped 200 bucks to buy a very good condition copy of HeroQuest for my father last Christmas, and not ashamed to say that we've busted the game out on a couple of occasions to play like old times.

Pretty cool story man, I'll bet he loved that. Hope you guys had fun.

> you'd rather let a game railroad you and make your decisions for you rather than demostrating anything resembling problem solving
Are you seriously claiming that poker and Diplomacy (and Go) demonstrate problem solving? Seriously? Please don't ever post here again, thanks.

Also, "making your decisions for you" is something that only happens in bottom-tier ameritrash games. We've moved on past that in this century.

...

Professional tip: you do *not* have to post something moronic when you've lost an argument. Sometimes it's OK to just shut up when you've been humiliated.

>implying that was me you were talking to and i didnt just think your post was shit

I'm pretty sure you're the only one here that's simultaneously autistic and retarded.

(Then again, you 80-IQ guys arr rook same to me, so who knows.)

>so triggered he's not even pretending to have the high ground anymore
It's a step forward for you, user. Anyway since this is bgg, what's the last game you played?

I played a few games of Friday earlier tonight. My friend lent it to me because he's knows I've been into solos lately. It's pretty fun but does feel kinda repetitive, so it's really something to pull out if you only have an hour or less including set up/tear down. Do you like solo games?

My first time playing Talisman I was the necromancer. Quite early on in the game I disregarded the main quest to collect as many ghost ladies for my harem as possible. That did not win me the game, but it was fun nonetheless.
Another time I was the tinkerer and ended up with billions and billions of followers, both living and artificial.
One time we played for over 8 hours on one single game.

I really think Talisman is more fun when it's just played for fun. I've played dozens of times and only finished like 2 games. It's a fun activity when you're getting fucked up and chillin with your bros.

I own Dungeon Saga and I disagree : a lot of the map is setup beforehand so you rarely get the "where do we end up next ?" feel and the time pressure card system prevents players from exploring the tiles too much.

I know you're an autist and all, but this isn't what "triggered" looks like. "Triggered" is a visceral emotional reaction, and triggered people don't cold-heartedly dangle bait.

> Anyway since this is bgg, what's the last game you played?
Robinson Crusoe. (9/10 game, but I wish this game was tougher, it really needs some Agricola-style occupation cards.)

>not even trying to bully anymore
>throwing around memes cuz muh sekrit channrs klubbb
cute

Are you also gonna pick up first martians or fuck it because you like Robinson so much? I haven't played it personally, but fun coincidence that the last games we played have the same theme.

I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, mate. (I guess I'm not turboautist enough, but whatever.)

> Are you also gonna pick up first martians or fuck it because you like Robinson so much?
Definitely "fuck it". First Martians seems to be Robinson except shitted up with the crap that BGG's audience likes. (App gimmicks, minis, a stupid Mars theme, legacy components, etc.)

(And in general, doing opposite of where the BGG herd runs seems like a good idea, there's lots of nutty people there.)

Sure, pal.

Isn't there a necessary app as well? I greatly prefer board games to vidya, but I'd gladly bust out my ps2 before playing one of those idiotic "board games but the app makes it so much better" fucking things. MoM is a shit game with or without the map. There is almost no difference between that game and Betrayal but people get so fucking hard for lovecraft they won't admit it.

done with board gaming today, didn't get to bring out any heavy hitters due a couple of people not showing up but got a couple of games of The King is Dead and Noir from my collection, enthusiastic responses from the other players. also played Custom Heroes and 60 Seconds to Save the World. gimmick of Custom Heroes is cute, don't care too much about 60 Seconds but I won't object to playing again

playing Initiation in Warcults is a lot more simpler game than CE in that the resource gathering aspect is removed and there's almost no events apart from excavations and collapsing terrain. everyone who I introduce it to likes to just go on a murder spree instead. unit management is a lot more important as you only have one opportunity to gain reinforcements in the whole game. other game modes in Warcults offer a lot more complexity than CE including resource gathering, but still lacks the end game NPC from CE which I personally prefer over a hard round limit

I've yet to play a 4P game of it, which very much seems to be the optimal player count as that ensures that there will be players constantly fighting over leaderships of each commodity, which is important for not being undersold by another player but there's always the risk of supply chains being dismantled by other means. I definitely recommend it as an anti-engine builder game, really keen to see John Company hitting the table in a few months

I've been away from Veeky Forums since posting the photo of my bag and you've been flailing around screeching autistically and falling for baits from other anons as a result of my cold-dangled bait, congrats

also note how I didn't respond to your posts about poker/Diplomacy/Go, so I'm not sure why you got so defensive over that but it was entertaining regardless (Keep on being you, you beautiful sub-human.)

Can you guys give me some advice on playing Cosmic Encounter?
When we play it, it feels like chutes and ladders. There is some thrash talk and some of the powers combine in a fun way, but for the most part its just
>do you have a negotiate?
>yeah
>okay, lets negotiate
>okay, colony for colony?
>sure

repeat until someone has 5 colonies.
The on house rule we have is we don't bother with formal invites (first the atacker says who he invites, then the defender etc), it's more of a open chat.

Personally I like Heroquest slightly better than modern dungeon crawlers, and not because of nostalgia. Modern games do a lot of things better, but Heroquest has one big advantage over them all: the board isn't made up of a dozen of pieces. It's so much easier to put in place.

Has anyone here tried the "Uncharted Dungeons" gamemode from the Adventurer's Companion? I think it might feel more "explore-y", but have never tried it myself and I'd like to hear some anons opinions on it.

sorry user, but open chat is a terrible house rule and just further invokes the Snakes and Ladders feel, I've tried this myself once in a 7P game and it went quicker than 5P games. be more ballsy with negotiating and don't go for weak deals like that, otherwise you should look for another game that doesn't have a negotiation element as it just sounds like your group compromises of passive players

Your insults are quite boring and you're refusing to respond to my boardgame-related triggers. Also you have shit taste in boardgames.

This /bgg/ is broken, can I get another one?

Don't play shit games, problem solved.

(You're gonna get a boatload of comments blaming your group, but trust me, it really is the game's fault. We've long moved on past the "lol let's just talk shit and pretend to negotiate instead of having formal rules" mechanic to better stuff.)

Yeah, it very well might be the reason why it plays so shit. I think we'll try it tonight without the house rule, thanks!

I'm not convinced that CE is a shit game, but to what games have you moved on that hit a similar spot?

> to what games have you moved on that hit a similar spot?
I don't know in what spot you got hit, and I never had a problem playing more serious games, so I can't comment on what might interest the typical ameritrasher pleb. (Not that I'm implying that you're one of *those* people.)

But if I were you, I'd try Isle of Skye instead -- another simple game with negotiating, but one that also has some depth of strategy. Or maybe the classic Bohnanza, great fun even if the negotiation metagame is more straightforward.

I've been thinking about getting Isle lately, thanks for the recomendation, I'll have to try it out.

>negotiating in isle of skye.

how ?

Look, just because the rulebook doesn't say in big bold letters THE PLAYERS NOW HAVE TO NEGOTIATE doesn't mean you're not supposed to.

If you're not negotiating and making deals in Isle of Skye then you're playing it wrong, non-optimally. There's no real reason why you wouldn't want to take advantage of other players or mess with their minds. The whole game is basically a series of blind auctions, and what's the point of auctioning if you can't metagame the shit out of the transactions?

(Of course there's no way to make any contracts binding, but that's normal for pretty much all boardgames.)

seeeems, weird.

we look at what other players need. estimate what they would pay to buy the tile and try to remember how much gold they should have and then either put down more then they want to pay or can. or just enough if you want them to buy.

its more about thinking what they will do and optimally use your turn order so you have gold when your first

>"why are you not falling for my bait user???"
because I'm not a manchild like you? (I recommend practicing human interaction skills, which will also benefit you for when you play board games where have to pay attention to actions of other players that may affect your decision making for future turns. Consider getting a job in retail, human services or hospitality for optimal efficency in building your human interaction engine.)

/r/boardgames might be better suited for your needs

The game isn't good. Sorry you let Vasel trick you into buying it. Don't forget he is literally a paid shill and openly admits it. Make your own decisions like an adult next time. You could have easily read the rulebook for free and seen that the game was shit before wasting your time and money.

>its more about thinking what they will do and optimally use your turn order so you have gold when your first
Definitely this is required. But on top of that, when you're placing your bids behind your screen is the time when you can discuss strategy and talk about "what they will do". Basically a back-and-forth of a few of "no, I'm not gonna use this sheep tile this round, I'm saving money so you can go ahead and buy it for one coin", that sort of thing.

Pretty much every German family game implies behind-the-scenes banter and assorted negotiating shenanigans.

>repeat until someone has 5 colonies.
Repeat until someone has 4 colonies, then spend the next hour playing an unsatisfying and increasingly difficult game of whack-a-mole

Cosmic Encounter is a terrible game. Its base negotiation and cardplay are both garbage, and while the powers lend a level of random bullshit that's entertaining for like 15 minutes, they then mostly just get old. I have never once had a good experience playing that game, and not for a lack of trying since I'd come into it with such glowing praise from Vasel (Who's normally pretty respectable, or at least has a point even if I disagree) that I kept telling myself "You know what, we probably don't get it yet. Let's try again some time with a better understanding." It never helped. I'm just glad it only ever ate a little time at a board game cafe, not my money and shelf space.

Does anyone have Trickerion? It looks cool but I don't know if I have enough table space.

Would a 4'x4' dinner table be sufficient?

>try to get my friends to play HeroQuest with me
>super stoked because its been like two decades since I've played it
>wizard immediately splits off from the party and does his own thing
>one player gets really low movement rolls like 6 turns in a row and is clearly not having fun
>I had to skim through the rules and didn't notice the "if there is no treasure indicated for the room they draw a card" rule until near the end of the game
>they all get annoyed that the enemies are too hard in the tutorial dungeon even though they weren't working together
>they all think HeroQuest is shit now and I can't convince them to give it another shot no matter how much I insist it will be more fun now that I'm not an idiot and remember how treasure works, especially if they work together
This is the worst thing about heroquest

The worst thing about HeroQuest is that the owners are dipshits that don't properly explain the rules and tactics of the game before they convince new players to try it out?